The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

Loading ...

Loading ...

This story appears in the {{article.article.magazine.pretty_date}} issue of {{article.article.magazine.pubName}}. Subscribe

Continued from page 2

4. Leverage social media

I hate phrases like the one above, but it really does apply to what happened here. This thing simply exploded with thousands of Facebook posts and Twitter retweets, along with many media outlets (mine included) covering the phenomenon. In truth, it was hard to escape from the story yesterday.

My own post about how they raised the money from yesterday is one of the top links on Reddit right now. That's a hundred thousand pairs of eyes right there, and creates a snowball effect of donations which is why the movie has not only met its goal, but surpassed it. The cast promises a better movie with more donations, and there's no telling when this will stop.

5. Understand that not everyone will be able to do this

Veronica Mars recognized they had a real shot of making this happen with Kickstarter. They correctly gauged the loyalty of their fanbase, and it paid off for them. What's now going to surely happen is that many other people will now try something similar. But it's going to be hard to replicate this kind of success.

I know this is going to spark some sort of "new media" debate about crowdfunding and whether or not this changes the funding of films or not.

It doesn't.

The truth is, Veronica Mars is the perfect storm of criteria, some of which I've mentioned. It's a show with a hugely devoted fanbase who has felt slighted over the years. For example, I doubt we'll see something like this for a long-rumored 24 movie because that show ran for eight years and few people felt slighted by its cancellation.

Also, Mars has the ability to work with a low budget. For as much as I love Firefly, and would love to see a similar Kickstarter, it should be kept in mind that the first film that spawned from the show, Serenity, cost $39M in production, and barely made that back. To fund a new movie or miniseries for a higher budgeted concept would take a hell of a lot more than $2M.

Lastly, the cast must be free. Not to say the cast of Veronica Mars is a bunch of homeless do-nothings, but many are less busy than they used to be. Using Firefly again as an example, the biggest impediment stopping that show from returning in some form is the fact that many of its lead actors are starring in their own popular projects right now, Nathan Fillion in Castle, Morena Baccarin in Homeland, and so on.

In short, Veronica Mars had the perfect combination of a loyal fanbase, a willing and available cast and relatively low budget needs. Show me another series that has similar criteria, and we may indeed see this success replicated. But I can't imagine there are that many projects that would be able to reproduce these results.